What Vegans Don’t Want You to Know – The Truth from an Iowa Farm Girl

By Josie Boyle

Vegans have villainized family farms due to a misunderstanding of common animal welfare and husbandry practices. Animal rights activists have created a narrative that all farmers mistreat their animals and see them as numbers for profit. As a girl who grew up on her family’s farm in Northeast Iowa, I have seen firsthand the care and compassion that farmers put into what they do.

PETA writes that “meat is gross” and that consuming it is “one of the worst things you can do for the Earth.” The organization claims that going vegan makes people “look sexy and be sexy.” 

Nothing is sexy about openly denouncing the selfless men and women who dedicate their lives to feeding our growing world. According to the National Institutes of Health, red meat “is a nutrient-dense food providing important amounts of protein, essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals that are the most common nutrient shortages in the world, including vitamin A, iron, and zinc.” 

Additionally, anthropologists believe having a diet that includes meat is “one of the factors that led to evolution of larger brains.” Consuming meat and animal products is part of a healthy lifestyle.

Hearing people choosing to go vegan to “save the animals” is something I cannot understand, as I personally know the care and compassion that farmers put into what they do. On my family farm, we had multiple non-negotiable rules regarding our animals. The first was that we could not eat until our animals did. Whether the temperatures were climbing to the nineties or if it was 6:00 am on a frigid, negative-twenty-degree morning, my siblings and I always ensured that our animals were correctly fed before we were allowed to eat any meals ourselves. 

Another rule my family established was that we could not allow our animals to live in a place that we would not live in ourselves. This meant that fresh, clean water was always available to our livestock. My siblings and I also ensured all our animals — goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits, and cattle — lived in a sanitary environment, warm in the winter, ventilated in the summer, and comfortable. This resulted in many hours spent scooping manure out of pens, but every second was worth it to ensure a high quality of life for our beloved animals.

Why were my family’s care standards so high? Simply put, we understood that our animals deserved the best life possible before they served their ultimate purpose of nourishing the world. Every animal on my farm had a name, including our beef cows and heifers. Our animals are more than numbers to us; they are family, even if it was just temporary. 

I spent every summer as a young girl washing and training my goats, pigs, and rabbits to be shown at county and state fairs. I loved learning the individual personalities of my animals and establishing mutual trust as we worked on leading with a halter and setting up or “posing” in the show ring. There was something about being handed a blue ribbon by a judge and experiencing the sublime feeling of accomplishment that I knew many of my “city friends” did not understand. No one sees hard work pay off quite like farm kids.

I have been asked countless times how I can sell my animals to be harvested after all the time I spent loving them. I will never deny that it is challenging. Each year, I would be teary-eyed during the county fair auction. It is so hard to let go of an animal I spent hundreds of hours working with and caring for. However, what comforts me is knowing that my animals are serving their ultimate purpose of providing a healthy source of sustenance for my community. I remind myself that I gave my animals the happiest, most thriving life possible, and I will be able to do the same for many other animals in the future.

So, no, there’s nothing “sexy” about scooping manure, waking up at any hour of the night for an emergency, or helping cows give birth, but there is something to be said for the compassion and work ethic I gained from being raised on a humble family farm. I encourage everyone to eat meat and animal products for their health and support farms like my own that dedicate everything to caring for their livestock and feeding humankind.

Josie Boyle is a freshman at the University of Iowa and a participant in the Network of enlightened Women’s Student Media Fellowship.